


Quota

by ghostwriterofthemachine



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brutality, Flogging, Mentioned Past Sexual Slavery, Non-Sexual Slavery, Other, Slavery, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4129095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is unkind, and the world our heroes live in is more unkind than most.</p><p>Life in the mines is brutal, especially when you're someone whose life doesn't matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quota

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> This story was posted a few months back Anonymously under a friend's account, because I didn't have an ao3 of my own at the time. It was something I wrote at 12am, barely read over, and sent to her blindly and probably half-insane with the message 'just fucking put this up please I don't want it sitting in my documents anymore.' 
> 
> I then forgot it existed for a while, remembered it recently, went back and reread it, saw a lot of really stupid spelling/grammatical errors/editing opportunities, sat down and fixed them, and decided I actually didn't hate how it came out and choose to transfer the edited version to my own account. Which is what this is.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.

Worn-fingered, blister-caked hands gripped around the unforgiving shaft of the pickax, hefted it backwards on stick-thin arms, let over-worked muscles and gravity take it on a downward swing into the wall of the mine. The stone crumbled slightly at the blow, reviling the dull gleam of ore shining through grey stone. He hefted his metal bucket closer to himself, knelt down, and began picking the ore out with his fingers, dropping the bits into the already-half-way-full container. Dirt mixed with blood on his skin. He stared at the stone bits that were left over, glanced over to one of the mine carts where it was meant to be dumped. It seemed so, so far away. He let his head fall on one of his bent-up knees, resting for a moment, catching his breath.

 

_Crack!_

 

The whip struck the ground millimeters away from Gavin’s feet, making him flinch violently and instinctually duck his head to protect it.

 

“No dawdling, scum,” snarled the Overseer. “You have a quota to make.” He said it as if Gavin, as if anyone down here, didn’t know. As if anyone didn’t know the consequences of too many people not making quota.

 

The Overseer moved on as Gavin scooped as much of the broken stone as he could. He was lamenting the second trip he would have to make to move it all when a pair of hands, larger, but just as filthy, cut and blistered as his own, took up the rest. Gavin glanced to the side into a face as familiar as those hands.  

 

“Jack, no,” he murmured, low enough so no Overseer could hear. “You shouldn’t…Your quota…”

 

“I’ve almost filled it,” Jack said quietly back. “You need to finish more than me. Let me help.”

 

Silently, Gavin did. They shuffled across the airless mine together, shirtless shoulders bumping every few steps, and dumped their armfuls of stone into the mine cart. They turned and began to walk back. As they did, they caught the exhausted eyes of one of another slave. Geoff ran his gaze over them, didn’t wince at Gavin’s near-skeletal form and Jack’s sunken eyes and haggard face. He gave them a quick nod of support, a non-verbal ‘I’m okay, and I’m glad you are too.’

 

 Next to Geoff, Ray didn’t look up. He was bent low to the ground, seemingly absorbed in his work. In actuality, he was covering a harsh, barking cough that had worked its way deep into his lungs and dug its claws in there over the passed two weeks. Geoff looked at him, bone-tired and worried, then back at the other two with the same expression.

 

Michael was nowhere in sight. He had been sent into the deeper parts of the mines today.

 

Exhausted, starving, and ignoring his dry tongue, Gavin stumbled back to his place. He hefted the pickax again with his raw hands, barely noticing the pain anymore, and started the whole process over, searching for ore.

 

Quotas had to be met, or there would be no food for the slaves that night.

(-)

 

Their Master stood above them on a raised platform as his property broke into their assigned groups, each loomed over by an Overseer, to turn in the days quota from the mines.

 

Geoff watched the collection of each group’s quota with bated breath. They needed to meet it today. There was no other option. For almost a week they had fallen short, and not for lack of trying- the mines were running dry and there was nothing they could do about that. But it meant that there had not been a scrap of food passed out to them. The Overseer with the water bucket still came and did his rounds three times a day in the mines, but no half-stale bread and watery almost-soup had been given to starving mouths.  They would not last much longer. The Master, the Overseers, didn’t care if any of them died: The mines were the end of the line, where they sent slaves without a use.

 

Geoff cared, though. They needed food, if they were to continue to work the way they were forced to. They wouldn’t survive without it _. His boys_ wouldn’t survive, and that was something Geoff couldn’t bare to allow.

 

He scanned the clumps of exhausted men around him, searching for his make-shift family, needing the visual proof that they had all lived through another day. Geoff’s eyes alighted on Michael first, standing as straight shouldered as he could, eyes glued ahead, red-ish hair darkened with mine dust ( _he had been a pleasure slave, before he snapped and sank his teeth into the last of an immeasurable number of dicks that had been shoved down his throat from the time he had been snatched and declared pretty enough_ ).  Ray was a group passed him, shaking from hunger and the cough no one wanted to acknowledge, but standing on his own ( _he had never been a slave before here. He had been a thief, caught stealing from a noble and made an example of in the worst possible way_ ).

 

Gavin and Jack were in the same group, standing next to each other but not near enough to draw attention. Gavin’s fingers tapped a feverishly exhausted beat out on his thigh ( _captured during a raid on one of the tribes up North, taken from his home to be someone’s exotic arm candy. Caught worshipping one of his false gods with a boy from the same tribe. The boy had bled out in Gavin’s arms and Gavin had been sent here for daring to hold on to a piece of himself that they didn’t own_ ).  Jack, next to him, looked stoic and strong ( _he_   _made the stupid, stupid, incredibly brave choice to try to run away. Succeeded, lived as his own man for a year and a half before the Catchers found him and dragged him back in chains he thought he had slipped forever_ ).

 

Ryan was the furthest away, in a slightly different group. He had been chosen to work in the smelting rooms as opposed to the mines a month ago, a job that was even more dangerous than the mines but came with a few more perks. And Ryan always felt guilty for the extra sip of water he got, the extra scrap of almost-warm clothing. The rest of them assured him that it was perfectly alright  _(because in some ways he should be here the least. He had punched his former master to stop the man’s assault on his daughter, and been declared mad for that action and his resulting accusations against a free man. They didn’t believe what he said because he was a slave and they didn’t believe what the girl said because she was a girl_ ).

 

Suddenly, all attention shifted as the Master stepped forward on the platform, meaning the day’s labors had been counted. They all waited with bated breath. If Geoff was the praying type, he’d be sending pleas to every god he knew.

 

“Well, well,” said the Master, his voice falsely sincere. “Unfortunately, it would appear that 15 of you were short on your quota today.”

 

Geoff’s heart sank.

 

“I take it that means you all are still missing some incentive.” His face pulled up onto an ugly smirk. “There will be no food tonight.”

 

 _No_. Geoff couldn’t process, couldn’t even begin to.  _No, no, no_. It couldn’t go on another day. They couldn’t make it another day. In his minds eye he saw Ray and Gavin, always the slightest of the six. They were nearly skeletal now, stomachs concave and hair thinning from lack of nutrients. Michael’s face losing what was left of its roundness, starvation finally curving his proud shoulders where years of forced subjugation could not. The worry lines in Ryan’s forehead becoming permanent as his skin sagged. Jack slowly losing his strength as his body consumed itself, looking for anything to keep it going.  _No. No._

 

Geoff didn't even realized he was moving until he had pushed his way to the front of the crowd of hopeless, starving slaves, emerging right in front of the platform where Master stood like the god he thought he was, like the child pulling the wings off crickets to prove he’s bigger. The word slipped from his mouth of its own accord, of its own ache to be said.

 

“ _No_.”

 

The Master looked down at him, surprise present on his face for a split second, before it morphed into a disgusted, disbelieving snarl. All around them, the slaves were dead silent, shocked, scared and hopeful.

 

“What did you say to me?”

 

“I said no,” stated Geoff, fists clenched at his side. “You can’t do that and expect us to survive. You can’t do that and expect us to work at the rate you expect. We need food.”

 

“You think you have any power here?” The Master hissed, eyes glinting as he glared at a man he owned. “You think you can tell me what I can and cannot do?”

 

“No. No, maybe not.” Geoff looked directly into the Master’s eyes, wishing his gaze could strike him and every Overseer down. He could feel the eyes of everyone on him, but he imagined he can feel each of his boys’ individually. “But I can ask. I can beg. I can beg, please, please, we need food. We can’t go on without food. Please, sir,” Geoff swallowed. “We need food.”

 

The camp held its collective breath. Behind Geoff, five pairs of fingernails dug bloody ditches into ruined palms.

 

The Master looked utterly, terrifyingly furious for several seconds. He stared at Geoff again, for a long beat, before his fury melted away into an equally terrifying, too-bright smile.

 

“You want food?” Said the Master, sickly-sweet, “You want all your worthless, cocksucking friends to get food too?”

 

Geoff said nothing, just nodded.

 

“Okay then. I’m going to cut you a deal,  _boy_ ,” Master sneered, “because I am a good, reasonable man. You lazy-ass pieces of shit were short fifteen buckets of ore today. Fifteen. Fifteen, plus, let’s say…five for bad behavior. That’s Twenty.” He smiled down at Geoff’s pale, determined face, sure of his victory. “If you take Twenty lashes, right now, right here in front of everyone, I’ll feed every single mouth in this entire camp.”

 

There was a strangled gasp that came from, of all people, Ryan. Twenty. Twenty lashes could kill a weak man, could keep a strong man down for weeks. Maybe, some people wouldn’t have even been able to consider it. But Geoff had been a solider, before he was captured by these people, before he was made to fight in their arenas for their pleasure, before they branded his body with their colors and sent him here to work in their mines. Geoff knew what he could take. Geoff knew what he couldn’t take, as well.

 

“I’ll do it,” he said.

 

What he couldn’t take was his boys fading away from him, painfully, one by one.

 

Two Overseers grabbed him by either arm, hauled him to the platform, forced him down to his knees. He heard the rustle of the cat-o-nine-tails behind him, tried not to tense his muscles because that would make it hurt more.

 

There was no more ceremony, no more fanfair, just the swoop of the cat through the air and the crack as it found home on his back.

 

 _One_.

 

It hurt, God, it hurt like Hell, but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing him cry out at the first strike.

 

_Two. Three._

 

He felt the skin break, inhaled sharply through his nose. In the completely silent crowd, Ryan bit down on the knuckle of his thumb to keep from screaming.

 

 

Michael kept his head high, locked his eyes on Geoff’s body, didn’t look away once. Forced himself to watch every second.

 

 

Geoff whimpered, but no one save the Overseer heard. Ray hid his head in his hands.

 

_Six. Seven._

 

Now, now Geoff cried out in earnest, his pain vocalized at last. Sure no one was paying attention and not caring if they were, Jack pulled Gavin to his chest and hid the younger’s face in his neck so he didn’t have to see anymore. Gavin clutched on and did not try to turn.

 

And on it went, on and on, 13 more lashes that felt like a million. On and on and on, until enough pain had been given to be worth half-stale bread and watery almost-soup, just enough to barely tame the worse of the hunger pains.

 

And Geoff’s five boys collected him and carried him back to their tiny, damp corner of the pens, filled with straw and three thin blankets full of holes. And they held him and told him how stupid he was, how he shouldn’t have done it. Jack and Ryan doctored him as best as they could. It wasn’t much, and Geoff still bled sluggishly and whimpered when he breathed in too deeply.

 

They all curled together, tried to get warm, settled with a minuscule bit of food in their stomachs, together and, for the night, alive. Ray coughed roughly in his sleep, breath rattling in his chest and clogging in his lungs. Michael woke up twice with a nightmare and was soothed back to sleep by Gavin, who had stayed up to mutter prayers of healing and safety to his Gods. Jack pillowed Geoff's head on his chest, and Ryan kept one hand resting on his pulse point throughout the night, just in case.  

 

In the morning, they were woken up by a horn, too early, and returned to the mines. 


End file.
